Englishman In New York Ch. 05

Sutton and Fusco scoured the dumpster where Sean Bean had said he found the breasts but weren't able to find any other bits of evidence. The tits did belong to Tania; they fit perfectly into place when the medical examiner fitted them into the neatly carved hole in her torso. Fusco nearly regurgitated his veal scaloppini on the way out the door. Dr. Arbule laughed so hard that the glob of Vicks under his nose threatened to jettison itself across the room.

"That one should be in the Olympics. Probably shaved a few seconds off of Michael Johnson's time."

"Arby, you're a real bastard, you know that?" Candace laughed, helping him put the body part back into its separate bag.

"Yeah, but you love me." He closed the bag and set it on a cart. "Well, Candy, I don't know what I can tell you but we haven't been able to find any usable evidence for you."

"What about the semen?"

"We typed it but we didn't get any hits in the database."

Sutton pulled her gloves off with a snap, stepping on the lever to open the medical waste trash can. "Wasn't really betting on that any way. You know they're usually a long shot."

"Yeah, sometimes." Arby washed his hands, turning back to the detective. "But you never know until you try."

"Arby, you've seen a lot of cases. I know you're not Michael Baden but I need your expertise." She paused, organizing her thoughts. "He's going to kill again and it's going to be soon. Tania was yesterday. Samara was two days earlier. After midnight, we're going to have another dead woman on our hands and the Mayor's going to shit."

Arbule wiped his hands and began to hose bits of flesh and clotted blood down the drain on a nearby table. He glanced up at her for a moment, then released the hose valve, ending the flow of water. "He's insane. He's not just someone who is intelligent, but he's also mentally ill. His choice of using prostitutes as targets is not an original idea but his specific choice of prostitutes who do not use condoms is."

"No condoms?"

"The vaginal or anal canal of a woman who consistently uses a condom is much different from a woman who doesn't. The muscle striations are much smoother and the vaginal muscles of both women showed that neither had recently practiced safe sex."

"So they were bareback specialists."

Arbule nodded, activating the water again and hosing the detritus down the drain. "Tania had HIV."

"And Samara?"

"Chlamydia."

"Is that communicable?"

"Yes."

"Can it be treated?"

"Chlamydia can be treated, yes, but ... well, you know about HIV."

"Yeah." Candace gazed into the thick plastic body bag, Tania's pretty features distorted by the thick material. "So both women were tainted but he didn't care."

"Nope. We found semen in the first girl's throat and I found some in Tania's mouth when I swabbed it. The types were the same."

"But why would he take the time to cut the breasts from the woman and then ditch them? I mean, it's obvious by the incision that he took the time to do a good job ... "

"Maybe he was rushed. Maybe he left them there for you and Fusco and that kid just happened upon them. Who knows? At this point, his reason for leaving them is not the point."

"And the point is?"

"Why was it necessary for him to slice the women? He could have had his way with them without injuring them but he felt that he had to mutilate them. Why was that? Why the throat and why the breasts? Why did he choose women who didn't use rubbers?"

"He was making a statement." Sutton said softly. "A statement about prostitutes that don't use condoms."

The word that Arbule whispered was even softer. "Bingo." Immediately, Sutton's brain started working, turning over spadefuls of earth in the garden of her fertile brain in search of information. The medical examiner checked a sterile tray of instruments, making sure that they were prepped for the next entry. "And what kind of person would want to target women like that?"

Again, the detective mulled over the question, thinking of possible answers. New York City was a place thickly populated with all kinds of people who wanted HIV Jezebels wiped off the face of the planet. Arbule moved behind her, setting one, then a second photo in front of her. The first photo was a crowd shot at Samara's crime scene. Crowd shots were standard and were required of every crime scene worked in the city. Knowing that most murderers were psychological beings, there was always a chance that the person would show back up to the scene to revel in the attention while secretly hiding his or her identity.

Candace's sharp eyes scanned the second photo, a crowd shot from Tania's crime scene and failed to find a connection. Arbule sensed her frustration and picking a black Sharpie from his jacket pocket, he made two circles on the photographic paper and smiled as the detective leaned closer.